History of Athlone

Athlone (Irish: Baile Átha Luain, meaning 'town of Luan's ford') is a town on the River Shannon near the southern shore of Lough Ree in Ireland.

[1] The ford at this point on the River Shannon has been in use since at least the Bronze Age,[1] and the settlement (including an early Christian site)[1] expanded around this river-crossing.

The currently visible battlements and cannon emplacements were installed to prevent a French fleet from sailing up the River Shannon and establishing a bridgehead in Lough Ree (likewise south of Athlone at Shannonbridge, near Clonmacnoise).

During the wars that took place in Ireland during the seventeenth century, Athlone held a strategic position, holding the main bridge over the Shannon into Connacht.

Forty years later, during the Williamite war in Ireland, the town was again of strategic importance, being one of the remaining Jacobite strongholds after they had retreated west following the Battle of the Boyne.

At the first battle of Athlone in 1690, the Jacobite forces of Colonel Richard Grace repelled an attack by 10,000 men led by Commander Douglas.

[4] It is named after a Sergeant Custume who, during the 1691 Siege of Athlone, led a dozen volunteers (of whom 2 survived) out under the Dutch guns to tear down a wooden bridge.